The deck is in the shared drive and four people have been "looped in." Nobody owns the next build. Your assistant drafted a status that sounds like progress. Progress without an owner is a week of burn.
An agency PM is doing client communication for a living. The move is one person, one approval, one default.
One name, one deliverable, one closed list
Address the stakeholder whose yes you will actually use. "I need you to approve cut 2 for the paid spots, send listed notes only, or hold the shoot date." Give the link where they already review work. Do not attach the file. RelayLink does not carry attachments. Describe the deliverable — length, version, what changed — so the ask stands if the drive is closed.
Then your recommendation and what you will do if you do not hear by the date that is real for the shoot or the insertion. A default only works if you honour it. Quietly waiting an extra week teaches them your dates are decorative.
Do not loop in the crowd in this message. If someone else must see it, say that in a line, and send them their own copy, or let your stakeholder carry it. One briefing still goes to one mailbox.
Notes that add work are a scope change
If their notes add a day, do not bury that under a cheerful yes. Lead with the change and what it costs in time, then the bounded choice: take the notes and move the date, keep the date and refuse the notes, or hold. The history of how the brief drifted belongs in a short record block, not in the ask.
Mark the premises. You assumed they still want the original audience. You assumed legal already signed the claim. You assumed the talent is still available on the day you are protecting. Label those.
Follow up without adding passengers
You approve the send. They do not need an account. They can reply from the email. If they already have an activated account, a new thread needs an accepted pair. A nickname you use for them in the agency list does not travel into the package.
If they stay quiet, follow up once with the same three options and the same date. Do not add a second deliverable to make the reminder worth their time. Do not add their boss unless you are now asking the boss, in a message addressed to the boss.
After they answer
Write back the approval in the same words — approve, listed notes, hold — and ask them to correct that sentence. Then run the schedule you named. A later "quick add" from someone who was looped in is a new ask, not a footnote on this yes.
The campaign can still be collaborative. This email is the one yes the calendar is allowed to believe.